A Canadian couple took a quirky step earlier last week of transporting their furnished two-story house to another destination across the river about six-tenths of a mile to their new property.
The trip took about eight hours and the effort of half a dozen boats, but the finished house made it from Newfoundland to Bay of Islands, reported the local media.
House owner Daniele Penney and her boyfriend Kirk Lovell organized the move. They said it also took a lot of nerves and mulling over.
As she watched the operation from dry land in the tiny rural community, McIvers on the west coast of Newfoundland, the house started to slip into the water at one point and the boat pushing it broke down. But then other boats rushed to join in and managed to stabilize it.
Aerial footage shows the house being towed and pushed across the water toward the place where it is destined to land, with the mechanical diggers waiting at the water’s edge to help shore it.
Once it arrives, it is pulled by the diggers up the slope on a trailer and slowly edged into place, as another video shows.
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Another video shows the home, with a view over the bay, as it is being carefully pulled and placed into the place its meant for.
Since they admired the two-story house, the operation was necessary because the landowner was planning to redevelop the plot and tear down the house. They had to move it like it.
Notwithstanding their decision to move it, it was not possible overland because of all the obstacles, including high tension power cables.
They thus resorted to try the water effort that involved strapping barrels to the bottom of the house since in the times when road networks were less sophisticated, houses had often been moved via floating across water bodies.
However, some of the fixtures and fittings of the house were soaked but the couple is hoping that it will soon dry out, helped by holes dug in the bottom for quick drainage.
The couple said that it would probably have been cheaper to build a new house, but it was great to be part of re-creating a bit of history. They shall always have a memory they can treasure.
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